Does Salesperson Perception of the Firm-Level of Market Orientation Influence Sales Behavior and Performance Attributions?

摘要

A firm with a strong market orientation, whose organizational culture values learning from customers and competition (Lam et al., 2010), is likely to enjoy high performance (Collins and Porras, 1994; Narver and Slater, 1990; Jaworski and Kohli, 1993). The importance of firm-level market orientation and the need for salespeople to effectively gather appropriate customer information in today's fast changing business environment was underscored by Zahra's (2008) study of entrepreneurial and market-oriented firms which suggested that market-oriented firms were better at capitalizing on emergent opportunities. Market orientation refers to organization-wide behaviors whose purpose is to understand customer needs, create value for the customer, and increase customer satisfaction (Narver and Slater, 1990). Firms that raised their market orientation earlier than their competition enjoyed a stronger sustainable competitive advantage (Kumar et al., 2011).